Publication date: 12 June 2008
To see a US manufacturing company, formed in 1998, growing consistently over the last 10 years during the lean times is not something one would expect to see, but if one was to pop over to North Logan, just outside Salt Lake City in Utah, that’s exactly what one would find.
Incidentally, Utah currently ranks as number 15 in the US for “New Business Setup”, primarily due to the value of the labour force, with Utah State University providing a steady flow of technical graduates, economic incentives from the local government and a thriving Tech Centre already in existence.
The company in question is Inovar, and according to their President Blake Kirby, the company’s success is due to the fact that “people do business with people”, and over the years Inovar has managed to line up a list of top suppliers that allows them to meet and exceed their customers' needs.
Of course, having quality suppliers including Juki Automation, Kyzen and Aqueous is only part of the puzzle. Inovar strives to give their customers a Tier 1 type service, whilst maintaining a Tier 3 approach to flexibility, and to do this they hire Tier 1 technical staff, put a lot of effort into not just getting customers, but making sure the customers they get are suitable for the service and solutions Inovar provide and they offer service solutions for customers.
In 2007 Inovar underwent a merger and Inthinc was created. This new business has now got three distinct brands. The first one is Inovar, the EMS provider. The second two are Waysmart and Tiwi. The latter two are both involved in driver safety – Waysmart on the commercial side and Tiwi on the consumer.
In the year 2000, only two years after their foundation, Inovar moved to a new 20,000 square foot facility. This has recently been expanded to just over 45,000 square feet. They now employ 270 people, with 28 of these (more than 10%) being engineers. They provide shift coverage twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. The OEM side of the business (Waysmart and Tiwi) employs an additional 50 people.
“One of the key factors” explained Jed Jones, Inovar’s VP of Sales & Marketing, “Is in ensuring we have the right mix of customers, with the right type of products and in the right markets”. Inovar prefers to deal with companies who have products with complex boards that require flexibility.
Their preferred customer size is companies with a turnover running from two to ten million dollars, and the markets they cover include Industrial (39%), Automotive (14%), Medical (17%), Military and Aerospace (23%) and the balance (7%) of the business is listed as Other.
The size of build that Inovar runs for their customers ranges from 40 boards per week at the low end, to as many as 15,000. Amongst their customers are Edge Systems, whose products enhance performance of late model trucks. Their turnover has gone from $1 million in 2000 to $30 million dollars today.
Another customer that comes under the Inovar umbrella is L3. L3 is currently the sixth largest supplier to the US Department of Defense, providing battlefield vision systems that aid American personnel in the field and help save the lives of American Troops.
According to Bill Percival of L3, Inovar made the transition easy, and dealt with any difficulties in an efficient manner.
The manufacturing facility at Inovar includes one Prototype Line (providing excellent DFM) and four full production lines, test, test development as well as box build. They also have Automated UV and Curing facilities. This is all controlled with a Mannex ERP system and Valor automation software.
When asked about where future growth will come from, Jed Jones stated that the majority of their business to date has come from the local economy, and that while Inovar will continue to service and grow with these companies maintaining the standards that they have come to expect, new customers will also be brought in from further afield, including both US and overseas clients.
Inovar, an inthinc company, is an electronics manufacturing services organization that has been based in Utah’s Cache County for more than 10 years. The company continues to be one of the fastest growing companies in Utah and the intermountain region.
Inovar provides manufacturing, engineering, warranty and fulfillment services to a number of industries. These industries include military, aerospace, medical and automotive. Inovar also builds inthinc’s proprietary driver safety products.
http://www.inovar-inc.com/
